Nothing is Better Than Summer Food for Good Cause & Miso Butter Baked Fish

7.20.10

Thanks so much to the great blogger friends who checked on me - I really appreciate it! I'm sorry I was away. The reason is that I have been procrastinating on to-do lists over the last 4 days and was out doing outdoor activities the whole weekend. Is it a good excuse or a bummer? (wink). It's good to do nothing once in a while and I enjoyed the time with friends. I pretty much ignored what was waiting for me to finish. Well, not quite. I had done stuff but avoided internet or computer related tasks. It's amazing how our lives fill up so fast in 24 hrs, isn't it?

As you know from the last post, last weekend my friends and I prepared and served food to about 50 NAAAP-Seattle members. It was such a fun experience and great time hanging out with friends. We went grocery shopping on Friday evening and we did good on our budget. Yippee! We spent the whole Saturday afternoon to prepare and get everything ready for the next morning. I first didn't think it would take long to prepare, so we decided to have friends over for a BBQ earlier that day. Man, it was a lot  more work than I expected. After the hang-out, I recruited all the friends came that day to help out. They must have felt like they were trapped hahaha.

Some of the Prep Team

My great helper of the day

I decided to make vermicelli salad, potato salad, grilled tofu and chicken teriyaki sandwiches, and miso butter with red wine vinegar baked fish. The food is simple and easy to make but to prepare for 50 people was an underestimated task.

A sandwich station - vinegar carrots and cucumber, fresh cilantro, chopped jalapenos

Included among the picnickers were 41st District State Senator Randy Gordon, King County Assessor Lloyd Hara, and 11th District State Representative Bob Hasegawa. We received really good feedback and that made us really happy. They were really surprised when we told them everything was homemade. We put a lot of care to it! (smile) I can't thank my friends enough for all the support to finish this task. The event detail was mentioned here. We were able to recruit 15 new members that day.

Baked fish is the star for the event. I realized seafood looked elegant in people's mind and the little pouch made it easy to cook, eat, and clean-up. Plus, it's super easy to prepare! Here are some photos from the event. For more photos, please stop by I Just Love My Apron page on Facebook, or here

Vermicelli salad: vinegar pickled carrots and pickled sliced cucumber, vermicelli, shredded lettuce, bean sprouts, green onions, roasted peanuts, and homemade dressing. Dressing is composed of fish sauce, rice vinegar, lime juice, sugar, garlic, garlic chili sauce, water, and a little of vegetable oil

Red potato salad

Potato salad: red potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, chopped celery, shredded carrots, minced parsley, chopped green onions, and homemade dressing. Dressing is composed of mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, capers, black pepper, and red wine vinegar

Grilled chicken teriyaki sandwich: grilled marinated overnight chicken, vinegar pickled carrots and sliced cucumber, cilantro and jalapenos put on a roll and topped with teriyaki sauce.

The sauce recipe can be found here - Spicy Tofu Teriyaki with Ramen Noodles by leaving out garlic chili sauce and Sriracha

Photo by Julie Pham

Photo by King Li

Since the baked fish was a star, I decided to share my own recipe on this post as well. It will be your crowd pleaser!

Miso Butter with Red Wine Vinegar Cured Rockfish

Ingredients:

1 stick unsalted butter

1/2 cup white miso paste

2 tsp red wine vinegar

rockfish or cod or any kind of white flaky fish fillets

Shitake mushroom, sliced

chopped green onions

Foil, about 8x11" or large enough to cover the fillet

Direction:

• Wisk butter and miso paste together until mixed and create a smooth paste. If you prepare large amount for a lot of people, please use a hand mixer to mix
• Add red wine vinegar little by little until you find a right taste for you. In this recipe, I added 2 tsp
• Clean and pat dry your fish fillets
• Prepare foil shiny side down, and spread miso butter over with a thin layer. Don't put it too much as it's salty itself. Refer to above photo.
• Place a fish fillet on the spread, spread more miso butter on the fish. Top with a few slices of Shitake mushroom and chopped green onions
• Fold, cling it to make a pouch
• Leave it in a fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight if possible
• Grill at 375 F for 5 mins or until it's cooked through. No need to flip.
• Enjoy the aroma scent and flavor!

**Please stop by on Friday and check out Matcha Madness Theme!**